theodicy

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Belinda
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Re: theodicy

Post by Belinda »

Iwannaplato wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:34 am
Belinda wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 9:02 am Iwannaplato wrote:
If you can't prove to me X exists then you are irrational to beleive in X. is an often underlying pattern in interactions here. And it's ridiculous.
I think you can study the ideas of philosophers or you can decide which ideas you agree with and perhaps even use the ideas to help you make your real life decisions, or both.

Naive realism doesn't appeal to me, and I think I detect a trend for naive realists not to have read much philosophy.
I think you can even be a naive realist, but at the same time you realize that some regular life tactics and strategies, beliefs and attitudes can be based on intuition and often necessarily must be. And that going with one's intuition is rational. If they examine their lives, they will find routines and beliefs that they cannot demonstrate to others are rational, but that work and that they cling to. Perhaps naive realist will have less people who realize this, but there is nothing in acknowledging this that goes against naive realism.
I should have said, 'intuition' means to me quite normal intelligence. Intuition is knowing something without having to reflect and think about it deliberately, as you have previously learned it so well.
Iwannaplato
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Re: theodicy

Post by Iwannaplato »

Belinda wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:49 am I should have said, 'intuition' means to me quite normal intelligence. Intuition is knowing something without having to reflect and think about it deliberately, as you have previously learned it so well.
I think we're on the same page. I would say intuition is a process where I am not consciously using deduction or induction or in some other way consciously, rationally arriving at a conclusion. Even abduction, if you think it out, is not quite intuition. It is generally fast and it just seems like you know. Of course, you don't have to be certain all the time with intuition. There are all sorts of short term types of intuition, where we make decisions about or in the moment. There can also be longer term conclusions, even about ontology or whatever.
bobmax
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Re: theodicy

Post by bobmax »

Belinda wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:49 am I should have said, 'intuition' means to me quite normal intelligence. Intuition is knowing something without having to reflect and think about it deliberately, as you have previously learned it so well.
In my opinion, all our knowledge is based on intuitions.
And these insights are not necessarily right, they can very well be wrong.

Rational reasoning, as complex as you want, always rests on intuitions.
When these turn out to be wrong, the whole rational construction collapses.

Without intuitions on which to rely, no rational thought is possible.

Perhaps the most emblematic case is mathematics.
The difficulty of which is not in its elaboration, but in the intuitions that found it.
Those who do not have these intuitions have great difficulty in mastering mathematics.
Iwannaplato
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Re: theodicy

Post by Iwannaplato »

bobmax wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:05 pm In my opinion, all our knowledge is based on intuitions.
And these insights are not necessarily right, they can very well be wrong.

Rational reasoning, as complex as you want, always rests on intuitions.
When these turn out to be wrong, the whole rational construction collapses.

Without intuitions on which to rely, no rational thought is possible.
agreed
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iambiguous
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Re: theodicy

Post by iambiguous »

Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website
Natural vs. Moral evil

Philosophers make a distinction between two kinds of evils according as each kind has a different cause. Aquinas distinguishes them as evil suffered (malum poenae – literally, evil of punishment) and evil done or committed (malum culpae – literally, evil of guilt). Now-a-days, it is common to call these natural or physical evils, on the one hand, and moral evils, on the other. Natural evils occur without any human intervention. One often thinks of earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, but these are natural evil precisely because they bring about the privations of physical goods: injury, disease and death – primarily in humans. Whether they come in large numbers owing to major weather or geological events, or arise spontaneously in individuals: cancers, infectious diseases, birth defects, these natural evils identify what deprives their victims of perfections which should belong to them: bodily integrity, health or life.
Yes, this is my own main focus. The terrible suffering endured by millions not as a result of their own transgressions or the "inhumanity of man" but simply as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of being born with one or another horrific medical condition, of getting infected with some deadly disease simply because they touched a doorknob teeming with this or that deadly microbe.

In other words, something that, if it came about as a result of human behavior -- someone blowing up a dam precipitating a devastating flood, killing hundreds -- we would label evil but if God constructs planet Earth out of tectonic plates and an earthquake destroys the dam killing hundreds, it's rationalized as instead just a manifestation of God's will. And thus not evil.

Or something along the lines of this...
The natural evil we know about is all grounded in the destruction of the body of living things. Living things suffer natural evil precisely because they are material, because their nature enlivens matter, and life is a process of acquiring matter to sustain bodies, and shedding or excreting matter so used. Material life is a transitory process. And the matter of any given thing is itself susceptible to becoming the matter for different creatures. Just what it means to be a material living thing is that it has a tenuous and transitory hold on matter which is sought by other material living things. So, material nature just seems to require the good, perfection, and existence of one thing sustaining itself by causing other material things to suffer loss, the privation of their perfection.
Nature in a nutshell. At times a ghastly and gruesome slaughterhouse of predator and prey. But who calls that evil? On the other hand, how does it fit into the conviction that God is "loving, just and merciful"? It's not like the creatures being hunted down, killed and eaten are guilty of original sin. Why the way nature is and not one considerably more tranquil and benevolent.

Of course: God's will.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=196522
Belinda
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Re: theodicy

Post by Belinda »

iambiguous wrote: Mon Jul 25, 2022 5:25 pm Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website
Natural vs. Moral evil

Philosophers make a distinction between two kinds of evils according as each kind has a different cause. Aquinas distinguishes them as evil suffered (malum poenae – literally, evil of punishment) and evil done or committed (malum culpae – literally, evil of guilt). Now-a-days, it is common to call these natural or physical evils, on the one hand, and moral evils, on the other. Natural evils occur without any human intervention. One often thinks of earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, but these are natural evil precisely because they bring about the privations of physical goods: injury, disease and death – primarily in humans. Whether they come in large numbers owing to major weather or geological events, or arise spontaneously in individuals: cancers, infectious diseases, birth defects, these natural evils identify what deprives their victims of perfections which should belong to them: bodily integrity, health or life.
Yes, this is my own main focus. The terrible suffering endured by millions not as a result of their own transgressions or the "inhumanity of man" but simply as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of being born with one or another horrific medical condition, of getting infected with some deadly disease simply because they touched a doorknob teeming with this or that deadly microbe.

In other words, something that, if it came about as a result of human behavior -- someone blowing up a dam precipitating a devastating flood, killing hundreds -- we would label evil but if God constructs planet Earth out of tectonic plates and an earthquake destroys the dam killing hundreds, it's rationalized as instead just a manifestation of God's will. And thus not evil.

Or something along the lines of this...
The natural evil we know about is all grounded in the destruction of the body of living things. Living things suffer natural evil precisely because they are material, because their nature enlivens matter, and life is a process of acquiring matter to sustain bodies, and shedding or excreting matter so used. Material life is a transitory process. And the matter of any given thing is itself susceptible to becoming the matter for different creatures. Just what it means to be a material living thing is that it has a tenuous and transitory hold on matter which is sought by other material living things. So, material nature just seems to require the good, perfection, and existence of one thing sustaining itself by causing other material things to suffer loss, the privation of their perfection.
Nature in a nutshell. At times a ghastly and gruesome slaughterhouse of predator and prey. But who calls that evil? On the other hand, how does it fit into the conviction that God is "loving, just and merciful"? It's not like the creatures being hunted down, killed and eaten are guilty of original sin. Why the way nature is and not one considerably more tranquil and benevolent.

Of course: God's will.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=196522
If you limit God to all good and all knowing but don't include all powerful that is one way to retain a reasonable faith.
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iambiguous
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Re: theodicy

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Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website
For Aquinas, moral evil too, (wrong doing, crime, – in a word – sin), is a privation, or lack of a due good, since an action is morally good only insofar as it tends toward the good that is appropriate to human nature as determined by reason.
Again...

"Privation: noun: a state in which things that are essential for human well-being such as food and warmth are scarce or lacking.

formal: the loss or absence of a quality or attribute that is normally present."


Is it any wonder then that, along with Aristotle, Aquinas was one of Ayn Rand's favorite "great minds" from the past.

Reason. Clearly as fundamental to her "well-being" as food and water. And to do evil is to act irrationally. Only the "goods" that are "due" are always as she construes them. The classic moral objectivist.

Only for Aquinas a "due good" must revolve around God. And just as for Rand, who insisted it was ever and always her Reason, for Aquinas it was ever and always his God.

The rest of course is history. Just different Reasons and different Gods.
"We must therefore say that every action has goodness, in so far as it has being; whereas it is lacking in goodness, in so far as it is lacking in something that is due to its fullness of being; and thus it is said to be evil: for instance if it lacks the quantity determined by reason, or its due place, or something of the kind." Aquinas
And who needs a context here, right? As long as you have access to the right Reason or the right God, just make the "set of circumstances" all about them. That's why objectivism basically works the same for both the religious and the humanist zealots.

And that's why I am such a threat to both. I dare to suggest that in the absence of substantive evidence demonstrating religiously the existence of a God, the God or, philosophically, a Goodness, the Goodness, it largely comes down to the subjective, existential parameters of dasein.

Unless of course I'm wrong. So, by all means, explain that to me.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=196522
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iambiguous
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Re: theodicy

Post by iambiguous »

Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website
So, for Aquinas, even moral evil is a privation of a due good, insofar as human actions ought to follow reason’s judgment about what is the true or appropriate good. Rape or murder is wrong because the victim is owed life or the respect of her body and consent, and the aggressor fails to apply this judgment in his actions.
Ayn Rand was drawn to Aquinas because he too followed "reason’s judgment about what is the true or appropriate good."

https://jonathanturley.org/2012/05/05/t ... -ayn-rand/

She simply insisted that her own ontological and teleological conclusions were rooted secularly in philosophy rather than theologically in God. But make no mistake about it: both paths shared in common the need to make morality objective. The need, in other words, to have a particular font [God/Rand] that others can fall back on as the One True Path.

Evil from the perspective of Aquinas/God or from the perspective of Rand/Philosophy.

The starting point either way being Reason itself?
Furthermore, the moral act has this privation as a result of the free decision; this freedom is what makes the action morally wrong and its perpetrator guilty of a crime. Even when human actions result in a victim suffering a physical or natural evil (in injury or death), what makes the action to be a moral evil is the free choice to deprive the act of the rationality that would make it good.
Freedom. You are free to live your life through the Christian God or through Objectivism. For Christians that freedom revolved around the congregation...flocks of sheep...while for Objectivists it revolved around, well, flocks of sheep. After all, if you dared to reject Rand's own conclusions, you were "excommunicated" from the tribe...the "Collective". You became evil personified.

Evil was whatever she said it was. Rape it would seem is immoral because it is not rational. Unless, of course, the woman is a Dominique Francon and the man is a Howard Roark.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=196522
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Re: theodicy

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There is only one type of evil, and that is wo/man inflicting evil to other sentient beings (animals, wo/men, children)
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Re: theodicy

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attofishpi wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:07 am There is only one type of evil, and that is wo/man inflicting evil to other sentient beings (animals, wo/men, children)
Right. So, this part...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages"

...is not evil because the loving, just and merciful God that creates the conditions that sustains them century after century after century after century works in "mysterious ways" far beyond the grasp of mere mortals.

And my own, at times, sardonic reaction to those here able to swallow that hook, line and sinker revolves mostly around the fact that I want God to exist. If only that there be an explanation for this terrible, terrible human suffering. After all, in a No God world these ghastly things are but the "brute facticity" of an essentially meaningless and purposeless human existence.

Right?

And, in part, I scoff at the True Believers here not because they believe what they do, but because they are unable to convince me to believe it as well.
seeds
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Re: theodicy

Post by seeds »

iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 5:58 pm
attofishpi wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:07 am There is only one type of evil, and that is wo/man inflicting evil to other sentient beings (animals, wo/men, children)
Right. So, this part...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages"
If you, iambiguous, were God, and could design the world according to your specifications, what would you do differently?

And please don't just say that you simply wouldn't include the array of negatives listed in your standard rant on the subject. In other words, be specific in the naming of the methods you would allow for how humans might meet their demise.

Oh, and be aware of the fact that it is essential that you (as a transcendent Entity), along with your ultimate plan for the eternal destiny of each human, must remain hidden from them until their death.
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iambiguous
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Re: theodicy

Post by iambiguous »

seeds wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:17 pm
iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 5:58 pm
attofishpi wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:07 am There is only one type of evil, and that is wo/man inflicting evil to other sentient beings (animals, wo/men, children)
Right. So, this part...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages"
If you, iambiguous, were God, and could design the world according to your specifications, what would you do differently?
Okay, let's start with this...

'Genesis 1:26-27 says that God made humankind in his “image” and “likeness.” Both terms mean the same thing, and so this is usually referred to as “image of God” (imago dei).

Some understand image of God to mean those qualities that make us human, for example: possessing a soul, higher-order reasoning, self-consciousness, consciousness of God and the ability to have a relationship with him.'
BioLogos web page

Okay, as with God then, we possess a soul capable of "higher-order reasoning".

Now, if a man or a woman created an environment or a set of circumstances that resulted in the staggering suffering of countless men and women and children and babies...would that not be construed as evil by most here? Would we call that a fine example of "higher-order reasoning"? Would we not deem someone who did that to be a sadistic monster?

So, when God does it, it has to be explained away. Some argue that God is in fact loving, just and merciful...just not omnipotent. But most can only really fall back on His "mysterious ways". Given the staggering enormity of the suffering.
seeds wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:17 pmAnd please don't just say that you simply wouldn't include the array of negatives listed in your standard rant on the subject. In other words, be specific in the naming of the methods you would allow for how humans might meet their demise.
The methods might be anything. They just wouldn't include creating a nature that is nothing short of a gruesome slaughterhouse, and a planet that is a deathtrap in countless ways. They wouldn't include all of the physical and mental afflictions we can be born with or acquire along the way. Let alone extinction events that wipe out species by the thousands. And it's only a matter of time before the next one gets us.
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Re: theodicy

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:17 pm And please don't just say that you simply wouldn't include the array of negatives listed in your standard rant on the subject. In other words, be specific in the naming of the methods you would allow for how humans might meet their demise.
iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:24 pm The methods might be anything.
Such as?

Again, name the methods of death that you personally would allow in your world.

And the ambiguousness of you simply saying that the "...methods might be anything..." might justify you calling yourself "iambiguous," but it does not answer my question.
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attofishpi
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Re: theodicy

Post by attofishpi »

iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 5:58 pm
attofishpi wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:07 am There is only one type of evil, and that is wo/man inflicting evil to other sentient beings (animals, wo/men, children)
Right. So, this part...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages"

...is not evil
Correct.
Note below: "God has limits to suffering, such that what we witness to others' suffering is not always to the case - in the extremes - that God can take ones soul - in the case of an Earthquake, Volcano, Flood - PRIOR to great suffering - OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH - in your case NONE!!"

iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 5:58 pm.. because the loving, just and merciful God that creates the conditions that sustains them century after century after century after century works in "mysterious ways" far beyond the grasp of mere mortals.
Oh, I for one can account that IT works in mysterious ways. Understand this:- God has created Earth, a place with much imperfection, allowing us humans to have much to learn about to correct the imperfections. This IS a type of perfection since intelligence beings WE humans, need reason to learn. Therefore, we can study the humans anatomy and the depths of biology to counter viruses, we can learn about plate tectonics, indeed, we can learn about everything forever hoping to create perfection. Imagine a "heaven" where there was no imperfection, no reason to learn to conquer etc..we would be bored out of our minds! You state God as loving and merciful..well understand this, God has limits to suffering, such that what we witness to others' suffering is not always to the case - in the extremes - that God can take ones soul - in the case of an Earthquake, Volcano, Flood - PRIOR to great suffering - OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH - in your case NONE!!


iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 5:58 pmAnd my own, at times, sardonic reaction to those here able to swallow that hook, line and sinker revolves mostly around the fact that I want God to exist. If only that there be an explanation for this terrible, terrible human suffering. After all, in a No God world these ghastly things are but the "brute facticity" of an essentially meaningless and purposeless human existence.

Right?
What suffering? Re-read my above statement, and I have suffered MORE THAN ANYONE I KNOW...at the hands of this "merciful God'!! So fuck u with your 'sardonic' witlessness!! lol. Yeah, I did not mention and include God in my statement about evil - IT does have another side to it for those that want to comprehend the Tree of Know_Ledge.

iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 5:58 pmAnd, in part, I scoff at the True Believers here not because they believe what they do, but because they are unable to convince me to believe it as well.
I have gnosis and am beyone mere belief, thus I scoff at most people. :P

I have provided you with enough evidence to prove Beyone a Reasonable DO_U_BT that a 3rd party intelligence/God is behind the construct to reality, here:-
viewtopic.php?t=33214
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iambiguous
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Re: theodicy

Post by iambiguous »

seeds wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:34 pm
seeds wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:17 pm And please don't just say that you simply wouldn't include the array of negatives listed in your standard rant on the subject. In other words, be specific in the naming of the methods you would allow for how humans might meet their demise.
iambiguous wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:24 pm The methods might be anything.
Such as?

Again, name the methods of death that you personally would allow in your world.

And the ambiguousness of you simply saying that the "...methods might be anything..." might justify you calling yourself "iambiguous," but it does not answer my question.
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Come on. This thread is not about me being God. It's about reconciling the God that many believe in with this:

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages"

With this: https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/chi ... conditions

And what difference does it make what methods any of us come up with as long as it did not result in the terrible pain and suffering that we know has been endured by countless millions of human beings over the millennia here on planet Earth.

That is what the question of theodicy revolves around: Why, God? We do it, it's evil. You do it, it's not.
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